Pioneer chief abruptly quits

By

William Hutchings

Updated: December 3, 2009 7:10 p.m. GMT

The chief executive of Pioneer Investments, one of Europe's largest asset managers with €170bn ($260bn) under management, has unexpectedly announced his departure from the company with no successor lined up to take over.

A spokesman for UniCredit, the Italian bank that owns Pioneer, said: "UniCredit Group communicates that Dario Frigerio, chief executive officer of Pioneer Investments and deputy general manager of the group, is leaving the company to pursue new professional opportunities.

"UniCredit Group would like to thank Dario Frigerio for the important contribution made to the group over the years and wish him great success for his professional future.

"Dario Frigerio will stay in his roles until January 31, 2010 in order to guarantee a smooth transition. Pioneer Investments plays a strategic role in UniCredit."

The spokesman declined to say more about Frigerio's reasons for leaving, or anything about his reasons for announcing his departure before a successor had been chosen. Frigerio had been in charge of Pioneer since 2001.

A mergers and acquisitions banker specialising in the asset management industry ruled out a failure to sell Pioneer as the reason: "The business was never formally up for sale and it has been off the M&A agenda for quite a while now." Equally, Pioneer's $1bn (€663.1m) exposure to fraudster Bernie Madoff was probably not the reason, he said: "Madoff was a year ago."

The banker said: "You could read into it that UniCredit does not know where it wants Pioneer to go."

The banker said he has been told a number of people are in the frame for the job. He said an obvious candidate to take over from Frigerio was Giordano Lombardo, who was appointed Frigerio's deputy five years ago, but he said: "If it was going to be Lombardo, I would have expected his appointment to have been announced already."

UniCredit's spokesman declined to comment on these views.

Pioneer Investments in October won this year's Financial News for Excellence in European Asset Management in the Italian asset manager category, for the sixth year in a row.